Organism and Environment in Cognitive Science. Seminar for graduate students organised by the Center for Cognitive Science in Turin (Italy) and sponsored by I.S.A.S.U.T.

The aim of this seminar is to discuss how the relationship between human beings and their environment is established, with an interdisciplinary approach. Contributions will be given by four renowned researchers in the field of: Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Biology.

EGGS_2005 European Gather of Graduate Students

Organism and Environment in Cognitive Science July, 19th 2005

Seminar sponsored by I.S.A.S.U.T. International School of Advanced Study of the University of Turin

contacts: cerlianipsych.unito.it dradicpsych.unito.it

The Graduate Students and Ph.D. Students in Cognitive Science of the Department of Psychology - University of Torino, sponsored by the ISASUT - International School of Advanced Study of the University of Turin, organise the first event of the EGGS series - European Gather of Graduate Students - aimed to promote the cultural and academic exchange among European and extra-European graduate students.

Organism and Environment in Cognitive Science July, 19th 2005

Fondazione Luigi Einaudi via Principe Amedeo, 34 10123 TORINO (ITALY)

- Morning Session h. 10-13 -

Maurizio Tirassa Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science, University of Torino ''Agencies''

Piero Cervella Department of Biology, University of Torino ''Environment, organisms and genes: perception and interpretation of a natural (imperfect) world''.

The aim of this seminar is to discuss how the relationship between human beings and their environment is established.

Human beings are biological organisms. Like every biological organism, we live and act in a space/time whose boundaries and shapes are determined on the basis of how we are made. The many ways we are enabled to conceive of what happens around us, and act on the basis of this representation in order to achieve our own goals, together form our environment.

Cognition is one of the various sophisticated means that evolved in different forms for different organisms to allow them to act, survive and reproduce themselves in their own environment. This is enough to state that the questions about what cognition is, and what the environment is to an organism endowed with cognition, are strictly related with each other.

Classical cognitive science saw the environment as an internal symbolic encoding and processing of the physical features of the world outside. One problem with this view is that there are many crucial everyday entities in our own environment that cannot be reduced to physical entities: consciousness, thoughts, social relationships, history, culture, as well as institutions such as taxes, politics and electronical communities.

A reconceptualization is thus needed for the notion of the environment of human being as cognitive agents and biological organisms. Cognitive Sciences should be able to address and answer many question on that. Among the others:

- how is it possible to give a biological account of the human social environment? - is cognition quantitatively or qualitatively different for each organism? - is it possible to build artificial agents that act in their own environment in the same way as human beings do? What does this imply for our concept of cognition?

The seminar will focus on some issues related to these question. Four internationally renowned Italian researchers from different disciplines of the Cognitive Sciences will give their contributions to the discussion. Large space will be left to the debate, that will follow each speech.

-- Practical informations --

The event is part of the EGGS2005 - European Gather of Graduate Students. The sponsoring by ISASUT has made possible to let the seminar be open to everybody free of charge. The seminar is opened to undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students. As the seminar falls the day before the opening of the CogSci05 - XXVII Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society in Stresa, a limited number of train tickets from Torino to Stresa for the morning of July 20th will be available upon email request. For more informations about travelling and accommodation, please check further announcements and the informations that will be made available soon in a dedicated page of the CSC website at http://www.psych.unito.it/csc/EGGS2005.html We wish to thank the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi in Torino for hosting the seminar in their conference room.